Hello, world! This blog began on September 28, 2007, and so far nobody has come looking for me with tar and feathers.
On my honor, I will do my best not to bore you. All comments are welcome as long as your discourse is civil and your language is not blue.

Happy reading, and come back often!

Copyright 2007 - 2016 by Robert H. Brague

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Even more poems by Robert H. Brague

I didn’t plan to end the year on a somber note, but these poems have been telling me for some time now that they desire a larger audience. I did put them on the blog back in 2007, but most of you weren’t coming here then. Although I wrote these poems in 1975 and 1976, I think they still resonate as we begin 2012.

..........Sonnets for the Space Age, circa 1976.....................by Robert H. Brague

......................................I

.......Technology has shrunk our modern world;.......No room today for the miraculous........In space a big blue marble has been hurled,.......And astronauts report the marble’s us........Computers speed man’s progress on its way.......Without regard to race or sex or creed;.......The federal grant’s the order of the day.......Without regard to truth or cost or need........So equal opportunities abound.......(Minorities don’t ever fall from grace);.......And new solutions, almost daily found,.......Are rushed to cure the ills of Adam's race........But seldom now does prayer storm Heaven’s gates:.......Inside, the Lord sits patiently and waits.

......................................II

.......There was a time when life was slower-paced.......And one could get to know his neighbor well........Today each moment’s precious, none to waste........Man’s much too busy hurrying toward Hell........And like a lemming, jostled by the crowd,.......He thrashes wildly with the drowning men;.......He downs his drink and laughs a bit too loud,.......And dashes out into the night again........So helter-skelter, racing madly on,.......He wears a mask to try to hide the lies;.......His painted smile denies that time is gone,.......But something doth betray him ’round the eyes........Exhausted, spent, he plunges past the goal.......To gain the world and lose his sacred soul.

......................................III

.......Polaris is a missile and a star,.......The one deployed on restless submarine,.......The other keeping vigil from afar.......While nebulae and comets roam between........Much nearer Earth, the evanescent moon.......Maintains her distance from our planet’s face........Perhaps she senses conflict coming soon,.......The Armageddon of the human race........So warily she orbits overhead........A quarter-million miles into the void,.......She too keeps guard. We talk of peace instead,.......Let our guard down. With warheads unemployed,.......While newsmen speak of cabinets and kings,.......Calamity is waiting in the wings.

......................................IV

.......Three heavens stretch above Earth’s little pond:,.......The daylight blue; the midnight’s starry host;.......Incalculable distances beyond.......These two, the one that modern men fear most........(For if there is a Heaven they should gain,.......A Hell to shun the day they pause to die,.......Then all their science simply can’t explain.......How in the merest twinkling of an eye…).......So, flippantly declaring it absurd,.......Men laugh until their laughter turns to tears;.......But Saul of Tarsus visited that third.......And dared not speak of it for fourteen years........If not till set of sun come out the stars,.......Why balk at glories waiting behind Mars?

......................................V

.......No sooner had the missiles disappeared.......Than waves of bombers rose up in their stead........When all debris and rubble had been cleared,.......We found almost a hundred million dead........And some who lived were maimed, and some were charred,.......And some no longer see, or hear, or walk;.......And many, although outwardly unmarred,.......No longer smile, no longer even talk........For laughter is a thing of bygone days.......When children played at imitation war........Today most people stare with hollow gaze.......Rememb’ring times, once real, that are no more........When men cried, “Peace and safety,” all was lost........We were not ready for the holocaust.

I've never been a big fan of poetry, which means the poems that do touch me have succeeded in breaking through the haze of pre-judgement. You have a style of poetry that I very much appreciate. Thank you for sharing!

My Other Blog Is A Rolls-Royce

About me

has lived on earth for 75 years and has been married for 53 of those years to Ellie, his wife. They have two sons, one daughter, the appropriate assortment of in-laws, and six absolutely magnificent grandchildren. He enjoys reading, playing the piano, driving in the country, sitting by the ocean, watching birds fly, gazing into a roaring fire, holding his wife's hand, and spending time with his grandchildren. He doesn't like doing yard work, walking a dog who definitely is not in the mood, or cleaning up after one who is (RIP Jethro, 2004-2013).

Me, circa 1943

A few months before this photograph was taken, I fell through a hole in a chain link fence in New York City and landed on my head on a school’s cement playground that was six feet below sidewalk level. I had a brain concussion. Some people think this helps explain why I am the way I am today. Other people insist nothing can explain why I am the way I am today.

Poem by a Yorkshire Lad

Song for Lost Youth

Perhaps I should have cradled it
Like a dove
Kept it safe with tender love
But I squandered it -
Gushing-blundering-raging
Like a wild mountain stream
Desperate for an ocean
That was but a distant dream.
...I just never thought
That I could have loitered in the shallows
Reflecting the blueness of the sky
- Concealing silver fishes
- Quietly biding my time
- Stretching it out.
And so, and so it's gone now
- My ephemeral youth
- That precious once only gift
- That honeyed sweetness,
Leaving only the trembling resonance
Of distant echoes
From half-remembered hills.

(Neil Theasby, 2013. Used by permission.)

Me, circa 2010 (with Mrs. RWP)

A reader in Oregon has requested a current photograph. For the thick of skull, I want to say that I am not exceedingly tall nor is Mrs. RWP exceedingly short. She is sitting in a chair; I am standing behind her and slightly to her right, your left. I am nothing if not thorough. Handsome and thorough. Exceedingly intelligent, very handsome, and thorough. I forgot humble.